The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Mary Swan

London, Lambeth Palace, 487

Homilies

Date: s. xii/xiii

Summary:

Nineteen texts in English, mostly homiletic, with some other devotional items. Items 1-18 are all in a single hand of around the year 1200. Item 19 is in a later hand, of s. xiiimed. Items 1-18 are drawn from at least two exempla (Sisam 1961). Five of the homiletic texts (items 2, 3, 9, 10 and 11) draw on pre-Conquest Old English sources by Ælfric and Wulfstan. Five of the other items (items 7, 13, 15, 16 and 17) have no identified connection to pre-Conquest Old English sources. Copies of these five items also survive in CTC B. 14. 52 (s. xiiex). The remaining items have no securely identified sources, although the subject-matter and tone of some suggest pre-Conquest influences. Item 19, 'On Ureisun of Oure Louerde', is associated with a group of texts written for or by women, and this might suggest that the manuscript was owned by a woman by the mid-thirteenth century (Wilcox 2000, p. 73, Thompson 1958, p. xv).

Scholars have debated whether the now-lost Finnsburh Fragment was found by Hickes as a single leaf in this volume (Hickes 1702, p. 192; Hill 1970-72, pp. 272-72); most recently, Jane Roberts has argued for it having been found in another Lambeth Palace manuscript, the two surviving leaves of which are now bound into Lambeth 427 (Roberts 2008).

Manuscript Items:

Item: fols 1r-3r/3
Item: fols 3r/4-9r/10
Item: fols 9r/11-15v/26
Item: fols 15v/27-18v/9
Item: fols 18v/9-21v/15
Item: fols 21v/16-25r/26
Item: fols 25r/27-27v/4
Item: fols 27v/6-30v/16
Item: fols 30v/17-37v/3
Item: fols 37v/4-45r/11
Item: fols 45r/12-47r/17
Item: fols 47r/18-49r/5
Item: fols 49r/6-51v/21
Item: fols 51v/22-54r/7
Item: fols 54r/8-56r/9
Item: fols 56r/10-57v/22
Item: fols 57v/23-59v/4
Item: fols 59v/5-65r/11
Item: fols 65v/1-67r/29

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: codex

Support: parchment

Extent:

176 mm x 130-133 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves; dimensions of size of leaves include extra width of 4-5 mm from the mending strip applied to the outer margin of each leaf. On fol. 11, a wider mending strip is used to make up the missing edge of the parchment in the top half of the page.)

160-166 mm x 84-88 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination: Foliated in ink: i-iii on flyleaves and 1-67 on top right corner of the recto of each folio, with fol. 2 left out. Wilcox notes the following: foliation must postdate some of the leaf repairs, because on fol. 11 the foliation is written on top of the mending strip; the second leaf is numbered '1a' in pencil; the same pencil hand re-marks the numbers of some other leaves on top of the mending materials; endleaves are not foliated. Modern pencil hand records quire signatures wrongly in the bottom right corner of the verso of some folios; this numbering matches James’ description of the quiring (James 1925, p. 673, Wilcox 2000, p. 74).

Collation:

Quires:

Note:

Swan 2007

Wilcox 2000

Hand description:

Number of hands:

Summary:

O'Brien 1985

Wilcox 2000

Methods of Alteration:

Hand:

Scope: Major
Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
Description: fols 1-65r. A very late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century hand with generally gothic features. Script not highly formal; described by Elaine Treharne as ‘non-formal, non-high grade’, and compared to similar grade scripts in CCCC 367, Parts I and II, Hatton 115, fols 148-55, and CCCC 303 (Treharne, personal communication reported in Swan 2007, p. 413, note 35). The aspect of the script is angular and rounded overall, with thick strokes and bowls multi-sided and formed with a number of turns of the nib. Generally controlled, but apparently not trying to sit scrupulously on the lines. Proportions of letters even.
Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
descenders mostly short; extending no more than half letter-height below the line.
ascenders longer; extending up to one letter-height above the line. Strokes ending on the line terminate in a small sweep to the right and upwards
d: ascender curved evenly and lightly clockwise as it rises.
f and long s head-stroke thick and almost horizontal, with a slight dip downwards at the far right.
g: both Caroline and insular forms used, often on the same folio (e.g. fol. 51r, fol. 61r).
Abbreviations:
þæt has a high ascender ending in a serif which is clubbed to the left of the ascender and which rises in a finer stroke to the right of the ascender. Cross-bar begins just to the left of ascender and rises in an anti-clockwise curve, ending in a clubbed serif to the left of its terminal, almost at the height of the top of the serif on the ascender.
˥ z-shaped; sometimes with the lower horizontal stroke shorter and lighter than the top, and sometimes curved lightly upwards; usually with the top horizontal stroke curved down or under itself at the far left.
Correcting technique: Corrections, almost certainly in main hand, throughout the manuscript. Various types, including letters or words underlined with dots for omission; missing words or phrases added in the margin and marked by ‘//’ against the addition and the point in the main text where it should be inserted.
Date: s. xii/xiii

Decoration Description:

Rubrics and Latin quotations mostly added in red by the main scribe. Space was left at the start of each item, apparently for a decorated enlarged initial, but these were not written in. A few small and now illegible guiding letters are visible in the left- or right-hand margin, in red or black. Red is used for some Latin snippets and some capital letters of words in sentences in English.

Binding Description:

Wilcox 2000 reports that the manuscript is ‘bound in a fairly thick, coarse leaf of parchment with hairside on the outside. “487” and “8” are now written on the spine and there are three tears where previous spine labels have been removed. Two older press marks, “#. C. . 12” and “4to 185”, appear on the inside cover. The endleaves include two paper bifolia cut down to the size of the manuscript, bound upside down as fols i-ii and rightway up as fols [69-70]. These are from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, printed by Peter Schoeffer of Mainz in March 1467’ (Wilcox 2000, p. 75, reporting identification by Hill 1970-72, p. 271).

History:

Origin:

Not known, dialect is largely consistent across all of items 1 to 18, and is localisable to the West Midlands. Laing suggests that the main scribe’s dialect is from North West Worcestershire (Laing 2004, pp. 72-73). Aspects of the copying hand and manuscript production might imply that the main scribe had intermittent access to a repository of source-texts. Manuscript copies of of the pre-Conquest Old English items would have been available in well-stocked institutions such as Worcester Cathedral. The holdings of such institutions would presumably be accessible to those working in neighbouring areas as well as to those based in the institution, so it is possible that the main scribe was trained and working in NW Worcestershire, and had access to a major library from time to time (Swan 2007). Swan (2007) also suggests reproduction from memory at some stage of the transmission process from source-texts to this manuscript.

Provenance:

On Ureisun of Oure Louerde might suggest female ownership; very little else can be determined of the provenance.

Acquisition:

Donated to Lambeth Palace Library by Archbishop Richard Bancroft (Archbishop of Canterbury 1604-1610). Listed in two catalogues of his manuscripts from 1612.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Mary Swan with the assistance of Hollie Morgan and George Younge (2010; 2013).

Surrogates:

Wilcox, Jonathan, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000), vol. 8.

Bibliography:

Bethurum, Dorothy, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957)

Clemoes, Peter, ed., Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series. Text, EETS, SS 17 (London: Oxford University Press, 1997)

Cox-Johnson, Ann, 'Lambeth Palace Library 1610-1644', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2 (1955), 105-26

Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942)

Hall, Joseph, Selections from Early Middle English, 1130-1250, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920)

Hickes, George, Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaeologicus, 5 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1705)

Hill, Betty, 'Early English Fragments and MSS Lambeth Palace Library 487, Bodleian Library Digby 4', Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section, 14 (1970-72), 269-80

---, 'The Twelfth-Century Conduct of Life, Formerly the Poema Morale or A Moral Ode', Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 9 (1977), 97-144

James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 282

Laing, Margaret, 'Multidimensionality: Time, Space and Tratigraphy in Historical Dialectology', in Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology, ed. by Marina Dossena and Roger Lass (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 49-96

Morris, Richard, ed., Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises, EETS, OS 29, 34 (London: Trübner, 1867)

O'Brien, Sarah M., 'An Edition of Seven Homilies from Lambeth Palace Library MS. 487' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, 1985)

Pope, John C., ed., Homilies of Aelfric: A Supplementary Collection, EETS, OS 259 and 260 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967-68)

Roberts, Jane, 'The Finnsburh Fragment and its Lambeth Provenance', Notes and Queries, 55:2 (2008), 122-24

Sisam, C., 'The scribal tradition of the Lambeth Homilies', Review of English Studies, 2 (1961), 105-13

Swan, Mary, 'Imagining a Readership for Post-Conquest Old English Manuscripts', in Imagining the Book, ed. by Stephen Kelly and John J. Thompson (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 145-57

Swan, Mary, 'Old English Textual Activity in the Reign of Henry II', in Writers of the Reign of Henry II, ed. by Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones (London: Palgrave, 2006)

---, 'Mobile Libraries: Old English Manuscript Production in Worcester and the West Midlands, 1090-1215', in Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century, ed. by Wendy Scase (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 29-42

---, 'Preaching Past the Conquest: Lambeth Palace 487 and Cotton Vespasian A. XXII', in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. by Aaron J. Kleist (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 403-23

Thompson, W. Meredith, ed., Ðe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, EETS, OS 241 (London: Oxford University Press, 1958)

Wanley, Humfrey, Antique literature septentrionalis liber alter (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1705)

Wilcox, Jonathan, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000), vol. 8

Wrenn, C. L., ed., Beowulf with the Finnesburg Fragment (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1953)